{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.lee.senate.gov/2025/7/lee-bill-blocks-federal-judges-from-appointing-u-s-attorneys", "Lee Bill Blocks Federal Judges from Appointing U.S. Attorneys", "2025-07-31", "2025", "2025-07", "Republican", "Senate", "UT", "Mike Lee", "L000577", "www.lee.senate.gov", "mikelee", "https://www.lee.senate.gov/press-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2013 U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced legislation today to restore the President\u2019s right to appoint acting United States Attorneys, a power usurped by Democrats and handed to judges under arbitrary time limits, creating conflicts of interest and power imbalances within courts. U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) cosponsored the legislation.\n\n\u201cPresident Trump deserves to pick the people working for him,\u201d said Senator Mike Lee. \u201cJudges shouldn\u2019t get to choose the US Attorney who will be arguing cases before them, just as they would never let a President name their law clerks. Congress took this provision out once before, and Democrats revived it to hamper the Bush administration almost 20 years ago. It\u2019s time we restored this prerogative to the leader of the Executive Branch.\u201d\n\nBackground\n\nU.S. Attorneys are appointed by the President and subject to approval by the Senate. While awaiting Senate approval, the Attorney General selects an interim U.S. Attorney to serve for 120 days. If the presidential appointee is not confirmed within those 120 days, current law allows district courts to then select yet another interim U.S. Attorney \u2013 an opportunity sometimes exploited for political retaliation.\n\nThis shift of appointment authority away from the executive branch to the courts creates a conflict of interest, weakening the separation of powers by allowing courts to select their own interim U.S. attorneys.\n\nSenator Lee\u2019s legislation will correct this miscarriage of justice by restoring the authority to make U.S. attorney appointments to the executive branch.\n\nRead exclusive coverage by The Federalist here.\n\nRead the full bill text here.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T14:40:33Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.lee.senate.gov/2025/7/lee-bill-blocks-federal-judges-from-appointing-u-s-attorneys"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8004051633179188, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}